MOSCOW, May 7. /TASS/. The Russian side hopes that an initiative of Russian President Vladimir Putin to hold a summit of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council will be implemented after the epidemic situation stabilizes worldwide, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at an online session of the Security Council on upholding multilateralism and the United Nations-centered international system on Friday.
According to the top diplomat, a key role in launching a direct open dialogue on the most pressing modern issues should be played by the permanent members of the UN Security Council who "in accordance with the UN Charter have a special responsibility for maintaining peace and security." "President Putin came up with the initiative to hold the summit of leaders of the [permanent] five [UNSC members]," he reiterated. "We hope that it will be possible to implement it after the global epidemiological situation stabilizes," he added.
Russia’s top diplomat noted that the honest and equal interaction of all states on pragmatic foundations without any politicization is in particular demand worldwide today. "This is the only way to normalize the global atmosphere and ensure the predictability of development of humankind. Especially since we are talking about such global challenges as terrorism threats and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, climate change, new infectious diseases," the minister emphasized. "It is necessary to ensure human rights beginning with the most important one - the right to live," he explained.
"I agree with [US] Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken who emphasized recently that alone not a single country would cope with such global threats to the lives of our citizens, not even the United States," the top diplomat added.